#LexusCT

Car manufacturers don’t always strike a chord with consumers, and even studious brand Lexus is not immune from model flops. Back in 2012, the company offered three compact vehicles nobody wanted.

Today you’ll select one to take home for keeps, whether you like it or not.

This is not the Lexus CT200h that was sold in the United States for seven model years.

This is the updated 2018 Lexus CT200h.

Lexus’ U.S. operations no longer wishes to bother with the CT, so 2017 is the end of the line for the hybrid hatch in America. But Lexus’ local discontinuation of the CT comes just in time for Lexus to update the CT200h for other markets.

The current 2017 model year will be the last for the Lexus CT200h.

An indirect successor to the Lexus HS250h sedan, the Lexus CT200h will end a seven-year model run in the United States that resulted in more than 90,000 sales.

Imported from Miyawaka, Japan, the Lexus CT has seen its average U.S. monthly output fall 58 percent over the last three years. Never a tremendously popular entry-level luxury car, the hybrid-only Lexus was forced to compete against very successful luxury sedans from Mercedes-Benz and Audi — CLA and A3, respectively — in the latter portion of its tenure.

The Lexus couldn’t compete.

I can’t speak for the US market, but in the UK car market there is one segment which I can never see dying. The small, luxury car segment (A.K.A The luxury entry level). This is the area reserved for your Audi A3’s, BMW 1 series’ and, to lesser extents, Volvo S40’s and Mercedes-Benz A-Classes. The reason I believe this segment is more robust than other is because it revolves around one factor which has been around for a very long time. Vanity. In the UK, you have many (and I mean “many”) mid-20’s to early 30 men, who’ve got a half-decent paying job and want to lash out on a car with a luxury make. Very few will go with cars like the Audi A4, BMW 3 series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, because they either scream “rep-mobile” or “old man”. They won’t go any higher up the ladder because that’ll be too costly. So the small, luxury car segment is perfect for them. The least amount of money for the most amount of badge-snobbery. This is why the BMW 1-series is so successful in the UK, despite being quite a poor car. “I can get a BMW for the price of a Golf? Sign me up!” Well, it seems a new boy is coming to the market. Only this one has a trick up his sleeve…